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AusPoliGAF |OT| Boats? What Boats?

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M

Myansie

Member
Their abysmal trust rating is a positive. Along with collapsing revenue, the message must be getting through. Even if only because it is so blatant.
 
Q

Quasar

Member
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-23/abbott-announces-anti-terror-measures/6217608

Nice wedge you have there Tony.

Leading human rights lawyer Julian Burnside QC has also questioned the Prime Minister's motivation.

"If politicians can make a country fearful and make them think that they are being protected from something fearful, they will gain political support," he said.

"So yes I think there's a real risk that he's doing this in order to play on community fears and thereby gain a bit of political popularity."

Mr Burnside said the Prime Minister's call for tighter immigration and citizenship laws in the wake of the Sydney siege were unwarranted.

"I'm not even sure you can say it's a bad judgment," he said.

"We simply do not know what facts were known by Immigration when they assessed [Sydney siege gunman Man Haron Monis] as a refugee in 1996, but to say that the system failed because 20 years later he turns out to be a bad egg, I think is just ludicrous."

Former national security legislation monitor Bret Walker also said there was no system failure in the lead up to the Sydney siege.

"A system doesn't fail because it did not predict something which was not reasonably predictable, and that's really what the departmental conclusions found," he said.

Mr Walker also had concerns the Government was framing the terror threat as being at crisis point.

"This is not anything in the nature of a so-called crisis, the point about counter terrorism [is] it's going to be continuing effort," Mr Walker said.

"There are not peak occasions where we can, for a very short time, trade away liberties for short-term protections. This is a permanent state of affairs and that's why the Prime Minister correctly says the debate about where to strike the balance has to be ongoing and is inevitable."
Click to expand...
 
E

Elaugaufein

Member
Now let see if Shorten can find something resembling courage and make a response that isn't ceding the framing of the debate to Abbott. I am not optimisti.
 
V

viciouskillersquirrel

Member
The attitude of the people who like it this way seems to be that refugee lives don't matter. Without being able to identify some kind of kinship with these people, either ethnic or cultural, people just cannot bring themselves to care.

It's the same attitude that appears to cover the way Aboriginal issues are handled in this country. It doesn't even appear due to hatred, really; just a cold, inhumane, monstrous indifference.
 
E

Elaugaufein

Member
The TV coverage of the national security address is disturbingly supportive of things like guilt by association and the suspension of civil liberties. Maybe I expect to much of people.

ETA - Shorten was useless too. But I'm unsure if that's really worth noting.
 
C

Candescence

Member
It's funny how Abbot is being a gigantic hypocrite on free speech when he claims to want to ban speech that 'incites hatred', and yet one of the first things on his government's agenda was to repeal section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
 
V

viciouskillersquirrel

Member
It was never about free speech - it was about enabling hateful speech from those whose views they must publicly oppose, but but whose underlying motivations they sympathise with.

It's like the hypocrisy regarding middle/upper class welfare. They're vehemently against most forms of direct transfer, but are perfectly happy to pat the wealthy on the back with ludicrous tax discounts. Because after all, if they've got that kind of money rolling in, they must obviously have put in a superhuman effort worthy of the extraordinary demi-heroes they are, and doesn't that kind of work ethic deserve to be rewarded?

Don't ever get it twisted. Liberal Party ideology may be about the principles of small government, individual freedom and giving the invisible hand of the market carte blanche, but in practice they're all about socialism, provided it benefits the right people.
 
D

DrSlek

Member
Quasar said:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-23/abbott-announces-anti-terror-measures/6217608

Nice wedge you have there Tony.
Click to expand...

Can Abbott keep the general population terrified of terrorist bogeymen for the next 17 months?
Let's find out!

viciouskillersquirrel said:
It's like the hypocrisy regarding middle/upper class welfare. They're vehemently against most forms of direct transfer, but are perfectly happy to pat the wealthy on the back with ludicrous tax discounts. Because after all, if they've got that kind of money rolling in, they must obviously have put in a superhuman effort worthy of the extraordinary demi-heroes they are, and doesn't that kind of work ethic deserve to be rewarded?
Click to expand...

From a certain perspective, I understand why both sides of government never seem to increase taxes on the wealthy to what we poor and middle classes would see as reasonable. If you tax them too much, they may simply leave the country or at least move their finances off shore....and then you get no tax from them. Far easier to increase taxes on the poor and middle classes who can't afford to simply move overseas on "golden ticket" visas and can't shift their money into tax havens.

How a government could get around that kind of conundrum? I don't know.
 
E

Elaugaufein

Member
DrSlek said:
Can Abbott keep the general population terrified of terrorist bogeymen for the next 17 months?
Let's find out!



From a certain perspective, I understand why both sides of government never seem to increase taxes on the wealthy to what we poor and middle classes would see as reasonable. If you tax them too much, they may simply leave the country or at least move their finances off shore....and then you get no tax from them. Far easier to increase taxes on the poor and middle classes who can't afford to simply move overseas on "golden ticket" visas and can't shift their money into tax havens.

How a government could get around that kind of conundrum? I don't know.
Click to expand...

It's the race to the bottom effect. Once anyone starts giving benefits to the rich, in order to attract them you must offer an overall standard within a few %ile to get them (and any benefit they bring), and the worst off guy has an incentive to lower them still further to try to make up in quantity of benefit what they miss from the incentives. Like most MAD scenarios the only way to avoid it , is not to play in the first place, but politicians completely lack incentives for long term or global planning let alone both . Corporations have exploited it to benefit from globalization in terms of wages/material costs but they do their utmost to make sure that people from wealthier countries can't import their product from less wealthy ones.

ETA - Well, you could also exercise absolute control over your currency and emigration but there's many obvious problems with that in a globalized world if you didn't do it before you joined the global market place. And that's not even touching on the ethical/moral issues.
 
D

DrSlek

Member
Fun times in senate estimates today. Accusations of bribery and all sorts!

http://www.theguardian.com/australi...bott-facing-more-damaging-leaks-politics-live

Ian MacDonald and George Brandis are going after Gillian Triggs and she's firing broadsides.

We then moved on to a ritualised excoriation of the Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs. Triggs returned some fire by pointing out that yes, she’d been asked to resign by proxy (George Brandis had sent his secretary to deliver the news that he lacked confidence in her as commission president) – and the secretary had mentioned not quite in passing that another job might be found in her area of expertise, in international law. No that wasn’t quite an inducement, the commission president thought. It was just a highly inappropriate offer given she enjoyed a statutory appointment to protect her and her agency from unwarranted political interference. Secretary Moraitis thought he was just conveying a message – and reasoned he’d been asked by Triggs to find out what Brandis thought of her. (Triggs recalled that trajectory somewhat differently.)

The estimates hearing played out in a bizarre and buffoonish kindergarten setting of boyz versus girlz – with the Liberal senator Barry O’Sullivan opining at one point that the committee chairman Ian Macdonald (who hadn’t actually read the report that was the subject of the morning’s discussion because he’d heard it was partisan) would be glad to hear a man’s voice. (These women. Banging on constantly.)


Such is the current state of enlightenment in Canberra.
Click to expand...
 
B

bomma_man

Member
If you look at the situation within the US, there are a lot of states without income tax, but you're still gonna find the vast majority of rich people in cities like New York and San Fran. Despite the amount they bitch about taxes, there are a lot of more important things that keep the rich living in places with relatively high taxes.
 
Y

Yagharek

Member
I suppose with a healthy environment for parody newspapers and morning news shows like sunrise it's only appropriate we have a parody government as well.

Apologies to Micallef.
 
A

A More Normal Bird

Unconfirmed Member
Gillian Triggs must resign for the good of the commission whose reputation is suffering after we repeatedly attacked it.
 
S

Salazar

Member
Elaugaufein said:
The TV coverage of the national security address is disturbingly supportive of things like guilt by association and the suspension of civil liberties. Maybe I expect to much of people.

ETA - Shorten was useless too. But I'm unsure if that's really worth noting.
Click to expand...

NOTHING TO HIDE MEANS YOU HAVE NOTHING TO BE AFRAID OF.

Which performs a pretty violent reduction of the entire set of circumstances down to the frame of my own personal affairs and emotional state. I have no defensible or intuitive connection to the experiences of other people, and nothing that happens in that regard can, or should, cause me to feel fear. Not that there are any other potentially active responses: it's all just fear or no fear. Not, say, concern. Or mercy. Or pity. Or generosity. Or empathy - which I mean in its neutral sense as sheer imaginative capacity. And yeah, my property and personal history and relationships and such are entirely fair game for snooping - because hell, any resistance to the inspection and monitoring and retention of them by government is hiding. And hiding is for terrorists, yeah. Only terrorists want privacy. ASIO are your mates.

I am fucking afraid of bullying assholes who tell me I have nothing to be afraid of so long as I don't hide from them.
 
S

Shandy

Member
Nothing to hide, nothing to fear?

Says the government that sat on the Forgotten Children report for almost half a year.
Says the government that wants to punish journalists who report on leaks of state secrets.
Says the government that is continuing to participate in the incredibly secret process of the TPP.
Says the government that can't be persuaded to explain key aspects of their policies without accusing those questioning of hating Australia.
Says the government that has hidden and sought to hide so many things over the past year and a half.

So what are you so afraid of?*




*Actually a genuine question. It can't be that the government is afraid people will hate them, because that's already the case and they don't seem to give a shit. If not for their own egos, why? Why to everything? Just because? Is it as simple as they just like smushing the people under their thumb? It cannot possibly be, surely?
 
Y

Yagharek

Member
This is the single worst government in Australia's history. Even Harold Holt made better decisions on his choice of aquatic activity than this bunch does in terms of policy and opening their mouths for public comments.

I hate the audacity that these clowns have to even think they have the right or place to "lose confidence" in the HRC president.

The fact is, the government's confidence is irrelevant. It is neither courted nor required, in fact quite the opposite. The role of the HRC is to tell uncomfortable truths, and if the government is uncomfortable then the HRC is doing what it should do well.

Shandy said:
So what are you so afraid of?*
Click to expand...

I'm afraid of this government and its agenda. They are actively ruining this society, and I'm genuinely afraid they will get re-elected; or they will be followed by a similarly inept Labor lot.
 
A

A More Normal Bird

Unconfirmed Member
Shandy said:
Nothing to hide, nothing to fear?

Says the government that sat on the Forgotten Children report for almost half a year.
Says the government that wants to punish journalists who report on leaks of state secrets.
Says the government that is continuing to participate in the incredibly secret process of the TPP.
Says the government that can't be persuaded to explain key aspects of their policies without accusing those questioning of hating Australia.
Says the government that has hidden and sought to hide so many things over the past year and a half.

So what are you so afraid of?*




*Actually a genuine question. It can't be that the government is afraid people will hate them, because that's already the case and they don't seem to give a shit. If not for their own egos, why? Why to everything? Just because? Is it as simple as they just like smushing the people under their thumb? It cannot possibly be, surely?
Click to expand...
They're not afraid of people hating them, they're afraid of people hating them enough to vote for Labor. Their problem is that because they live in a bubble world they weren't afraid enough. They thought if they just kept the things in your post on the down-low they'd be able to implement the rest of their agenda without much fuss and so totally overplayed their hand and managed the awe-inspiring feat of almost becoming a lame-duck government after a single budget.
 
B

bobnowhere

Member
"Why is Abbott a Dead man Walking?

Was it justice, was it Karma?
Was it Murdoch, was it Palmer?
Was it lying and conceit?
Was it backbenchers fear of defeat?
Was it Mathias and Joe's cigars?
Was it because we've stopped making cars?
Was it climate change denial?
Was it putting Julia on trial?
Was it the daughter's scholarship prize?
Was it debt and deficit lies?
Was it removing the Carbon Tax?
Was it trying to give the RET the axe?
Was it cutting Foreign aid?
Was it being so retrograde?
Was it the Minister for Women joke?
Was it all the promises broke?
Was it Brandis's bigots rights?
Was it prancing around in lycra tights?
Was it cutting the SBS and the ABC?
Was it costing more for university?
Was it imposing a GP tax?
Was it the disregard of facts?
Was it the ridiculous Dames and Knights?
Was it the threats and talk of fights?
Was it Joe's "lifters and leaners"?
Was it cutting the pay of parliament's cleaners?
Was it punishing pensioners and the unemployed?
Was it the total moral void?
Was it the embarrassing G20 address?
Was it the ongoing budget mess?
Was it the book-launch travel rort?
Was it knighting the Queen's consort?
Was it use of the sham inquiry stunt?
Was it the weasel words of Hunt?
Was it the 800 Million given to News?
Was it longer unemployment queues?
Was it a budget most unfair?
Was it too much body hair?
Was it nobbling the NBN?
Was it lying again and again?
Was it exploiting terrorist threats?
Was it job applications of Eric Abetz?
Was it the sex worker wink?
Was it being too slow to think?
Was it the surprises and constant excuses?
Was it asylum seeker abuses?
Was it the work of Peta and the IPA?
Was it repeating slogans day after day?
Was it the dog whistle of "Team Australia"?
Was it the pungent smell of failure?
Was it wimping Putin's shirt front?
Was it because Christopher Pyne is a pain?
Was it Arthur's memory at ICAC?
Was it giving Mr Burns the sack?
Was it ever declining polls?
Was it funding Internet trolls?
Was it Newman's election loss?
Was it the submarine double cross?
Was it the whole damn useless crew?
Was it the ties of bogus blue?
Was it the hubris and the swagger?
Was it Malcolm and Julie's dagger?
Why will Abbott get the shove?
The answer is, all of the above."
Click to expand...

I still don't quite get the governments enmity towards the HRC, the report sticks the boot into Labor just as much, and rightly so. Maybe they felt the need to protect their only real success, stopping the boats, and any criticism had to be stamped out less it unravel like a ball of string. I'm in no way suggesting the immoral way they have done it is to be applauded, but you can't deny they have essentially stopped. Maybe they just needed to hate someone for a week or two, rile up the right wing commentariat, dominate the press etc... Or maybe Abbott is just a complete bastard.
 
O

Omikron

Member
bobnowhere said:
I still don't quite get the governments enmity towards the HRC, the report sticks the boot into Labor just as much, and rightly so. Maybe they felt the need to protect their only real success, stopping the boats, and any criticism had to be stamped out less it unravel like a ball of string. I'm in no way suggesting the immoral way they have done it is to be applauded, but you can't deny they have essentially stopped. Maybe they just needed to hate someone for a week or two, rile up the right wing commentariat, dominate the press etc... Or maybe Abbott is just a complete bastard.
Click to expand...

Given the evidence...




Also I find it delicious that Brandis' secretary lost his notes.
 
M

Myansie

Member
How much did we spend on the Gillard and Pink Batts commissions? 30 to 50 million? What would happen if we turned all those resources on the Abbott government? We could build a wheel of fortune with all the ministers heads in place of prizes. Bishop is the only one who comes to mind who hasn't got dirt on her hands. Health, education, submarines, nbn, immigration, budget, environment. Every portfolio is mired in controversy and potential corruption.
 
F

Fredescu

Member
10388197_10153144674759913_250431489627408817_n.jpg
 
A

A More Normal Bird

Unconfirmed Member
The Guardian said:
Having repeatedly interjected as Labor senator Penny Wong led Triggs through a 3 February meeting at which Triggs said the secretary of the attorney general’s department, Chris Moraitis, asked her to resign at the request of George Brandis and offered her “other work with the government”, O’Sullivan joked to committee chairman Macdonald, “I thought you might like to hear a man’s voice.”
...
When Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young asked later whether O’Sullivan might want to retract his statement about Macdonald needing to hear from a man, Macdonald said he assumed she was joking.
Click to expand...
Absolutely disgusting behaviour by this Senator. Hanson-Young should hang her head in shame for her outrageous attempt to play the gender card.

Also:
The Guardian said:
“[T]hese days, Abbott sits for much of the day in his office in Parliament House pondering national security, Islamic State and reading Winston Churchill”.

John Lyons’ report in the Weekend Australian gives an unmistakable hint that Abbott is becoming ever-so-slightly unhinged. As his government comes down around him, he’s indulging in reveries of statesmanship, burrowing into Churchill’s Memoirs of the Second World War and polishing up his speeches.

If this form of delusion seems less frenetic than the death spiral of micromanagement at the end of Kevin Rudd’s first prime ministership, that’s just because Abbott has outsourced the politics to the unelected manager of his office. It’s Peta Credlin, we’re told, who “works the phones” in an attempt to master the situation. There’s a whiff here of Downfall, or of Charles Foster Kane, except that Abbott’s glory days did not see him build any kind of empire.
Click to expand...
Perhaps a bit jump-to-conclusiony, but hilarious nonetheless.
 
D

Dryk

Member
Yagharek said:
I'm afraid of this government and its agenda. They are actively ruining this society, and I'm genuinely afraid they will get re-elected; or they will be followed by a similarly inept Labor lot.
Click to expand...
Most of the time I'll take Labor failing at doing the right thing over Liberal succeeding at doing the wrong. When they're not agreeing to both be awful of course.
 
S

Shaneus

Member
Triggs is adamant she isn’t going anywhere, that despite the “building crescendo” of criticism from the government and from some newspapers, resignation would mean “giving in to the very pressure that [her] position was designed to stop”.
Click to expand...
Perfect.
 
M

Myansie

Member
Has anybody read the article in The Australian headlined 'Liberal donors close wallets'? A funding crisis is threatening to deepen Tony Abbott's political woes.

The party is dead without a money advantage. Pretty big news for a story tucked way down below all that good news for the coalition.
 
J

Jintor

Member
M

Myansie

Member
Did Turnbull say it in parliament or outside to the press? I've watched the video of him talking to the press, but I thought he said it in parliament. I would love to see Abbott and co.s body language in response.

Good on Turnbull for saying something. This really shouldn't have been made partisan.
 
A

Aarglefarg

Member
D

Dryk

Member
Palmer United Party (PUP) candidate Maria Rigoni has taken the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) to the Supreme Court, arguing that the number of early votes allowed before the 2014 election rendered the results invalid.

Ms Rigoni failed to win an Upper House seat at last November's state poll.

More than a million people voted before the November 29 election day, amounting to more than 31 per cent of all voters.

Ms Rigoni's lawyer Dr Anton Trichardt argued it was important for voters to "see the sausage sizzle" and "listen and engage" with candidates on election day for the results to be valid.

The early votes were not properly declared in line with the Electoral Act, and they put minor party candidates at a disadvantage because those casting an early ballot were not in a position to properly assess their candidacy, Ms Rigoni said.

Dr Trichardt said the case was "apolitical" and Ms Rigoni was not acting for selfish reasons.
Click to expand...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-...n-challenge-sausage-sizzle-earlyvotes/6261478
 
Y

Yagharek

Member
Myansie said:
Has anybody read the article in The Australian headlined 'Liberal donors close wallets'? A funding crisis is threatening to deepen Tony Abbott's political woes.

The party is dead without a money advantage. Pretty big news for a story tucked way down below all that good news for the coalition.
Click to expand...

lol

Who reads that piece of shit in 2015?

Shaneus said:
News?
Tim Wilson already promised Gillian Triggs' job
Click to expand...

NEWS? Thats a fucking scandal. If anything, THAT would be a partisan selection given he is an IPA stooge.
 
J

Jintor

Member
There's a supposed press release by Senator MacDonald going around which I refuse to believe is real because it is incredibly juvenile and pedantic and I am hoping really hard it was written by a photoshop troll
 
Y

Yrael

Member
Jintor said:
There's a supposed press release by Senator MacDonald going around which I refuse to believe is real because it is incredibly juvenile and pedantic and I am hoping really hard it was written by a photoshop troll
Click to expand...

Oh if only. I just caught the end of this live coverage on The Guardian:

Ian MacDonald has removed my will to live. No, not really. He’s just given us all a timely lesson in why one should always take the air or do some crochet or phone a friend before sharing one’s innermost thoughts with the world via some respectable means of self publication. He’s reminded me that you just have to step back from the keyboard. So I’ll do that after posting our evening summary.
Click to expand...

And then I read this on New Matilda. Good god.
 
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